Hey….
You’ve been wondering where I’ve been?
Lost, is the answer…
But just surfaced in Qiqihar, just near the Russian border.
When I woke up - as a result of a profoundly ugly mountain goat posing as a stewardess prodding me to say “SEAT UPRIGHT AND FOLD UP YOUR TABLE!” – I looked out of the window only to think:
· Sh*t – that looks cold
· Sh*t – that looks grim & poor
Then in a pure moment of selfishness:
· Sh*t – what will my hotel be like?
I was right on all accounts, and right to be worried…
The plane landed at a tiny airport, and rapidly did what appeared to be a handbrake turn at the end of the runway – I can imagine the pilot going “Weeeeeeee!” with childish delight….the airport was tiny, and the flight I arrived on (the only one in each day) would be flying back in a couple of hours (the only way OUT each day!) – no security as we walked out, and baggage was a ‘get-it-your-bloody-self’ affair when a big truck pulled up with it all piled up. In true Chinese fashion, there was a scrum…young, old, male, female, kids – the usual pushing, shoving & scratching of eyeballs. Spitting, too, of course.
And it WAS freezing….
My hotel was “The bestist in the city Mister!” and I joked “So long as it’s warm and dry!” – well, it was neither, and the shower is only lukewarm ,and can only dribble like an incontinent grandfather at Sunday lunch. Two out of the four lights in my room don’t work, and there was only a quarter of a toilet roll. I didn’t feel it was worthwhile me asking “Is there WIFI?” least I get laughed at or even run out of town. Imagine a condemned Travel Lodge and you’d be imagining comparative luxury….it even made the Bates Motel look like fun!!
My hosts took me to dinner – I’ve long since learned to politely refuse, feign illness or death or even suggest I have leprosy to get out of this treat, and this time I even said “Really, I’m actually quite miserable and NO company at all!”, but they insisted on taking me to a “famous restaurant” (it always is), but worst of all – this was a fish place (don’t like fish) – and one where all the food is alive when you get there, swimming around in tanks for you to select, thereby condemning them to instant death and cooking, with only seconds to say “goodbye” to their pals. Their fishy eyes seemed to be saying “Please don’t pick me!! I’m a good fish and a father of 3!!” so I looked away…
Worse, as the guest of honor, I was expected to eat everything first, so when a bowl of slop was put in front of me and a gas cauldron lit underneath it, I wondered if it was time to feign a sudden attack of piles, clutch my bottom and run outside, burying my arse in the snow for relief, hoping for a sympathetic ride back to my hotel….I wished I had, because as the pot began to bubble, my translator pointed to the contents and said “Please – enjoy – pigs guts!”
I was reminded of the scene in ‘The Exorcist’ featuring projectile vomit.
Admittedly, the fish they’d chosen was an ugly bastard, and I feared we were close enough to Chernobyl for it to be a deformed relic of the fallout, and was perhaps better off dead, but I had no desire to eat it when it finally arrived, to applause from the great unwashed assembled. At this point, I nearly said, “Look – I’ll stand on a chair, drop my pants, sing a song and do the stereotypical Frank Spencer impression if I don’t have to eat that beast”…..but I took a mouthful and concentrated SO hard to make it look like I wasn’t about to vomit. Ladies….I know how you feel when a bloke asks “Would you mind if I……”
When the ordeal was over, we went outside where there was now a snow blizzard, and our hosts asked me to pose for what seemed like several hundred photographs….when they look at them, surely someone will say “He looks a right miserable f*cker!” – I was very obviously frozen, hungry and about to burst into tears…
It’s 5,037 miles from my home to here….and just recently, it’s seemed a whole lot further….
Mr G
PS I send these updates in via a complex series of emails, as the blog site is blocked. You should see 3 photos….two of the food described so warmly above, and one of my hotel and the street this morning. If you don’t…well…you don’t…it could be worse…you could be here…
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